She said Tuesday she did so in memory of her husband and because the couple had a longstanding affection for the place that gave Charlie his first shot as a Division I head basketball coach.

She said her husband made many connections and friends in Springfield and what was then Southwest Missouri State.

“He just loved people. He loved life. And he loved helping young kids,” she said. She lives in Overland Park, Kan.

Spoonhour guided the Bears to their first NCAA Tournament appearance in March 1987, stunning Clemson before losing to Kansas University, said Bill Rowe, the man who hired Spoonhour in the spring of 1983.

Rowe had been named director of athletics in the fall of 1982, and Spoonhour was his first coaching hire.

“He was the one who got us that first (NCAA) win,” Rowe said. “He was the guy who did it.”

Spoonhour also became a close friend. Rowe stood at his side when he married Vicki soon after being hired. The couple was married in Rowe’s home church — South Haven Baptist on Campbell Avenue.

“He never forgot his roots,” Rowe said.

Vicki Spoonhour’s efforts to create the scholarship will further connect MSU with one of its greatest coaches, Rowe said.

“It is going to give former players and fans an opportunity to contribute to the MSU Foundation in memory of Coach Charlie,” said Rowe, 74, who worked for MSU 47 years before retiring in 2009.

Similar scholarships bear the names of other former Bears coaches and teams, Rowe said, including the men who played on the 1952 and 1953 NAIA national championship basketball teams; Aldo Sebben, who coached football and was athletics director 27 years; Mary Jo Wynn, former director of women’s athletics; Cheryl Burnett, former Lady Bears coach, who now works for MSU as director of development; Jim Mentis, former head football coach who died on Christmas Eve 2012; Orville Pottenger, former head football coach and director of athletics; and Bill O’Neill, a former assistant football coach and a former assistant to the athletics director.

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Spoonhour compiled a 197-81 record at MSU while leading the Bears to five NCAA Tournament appearances.

At the time, the Bears played in the Hammons Student Center, the raucous arena known as “Spoon’s Temple of Doom.”

He first was an assistant coach at Southwest Missouri State from 1968 to 1972. (The name was changed to Missouri State University in 2005.) He was the school’s head coach from 1983 to 1992.

Spoonhour died Feb. 1, 2012, at age 72.

Vicki Spoonhour’s gift was mentioned at a Dec. 18 press conference with others made to the Missouri State Foundation in 2013. The foundation did not reveal the amounts, and Vicki Spoonhour declined to provide a figure.

She plans to host a fundraiser, probably in late spring, in Springfield, to add to what she has donated. She said she wants to pick a time when her late husband’s many friends who coach college basketball will not be on the road recruiting.

“We are hoping that we can make this substantial,” she said. The event might include a dinner and/or an auction.

Brent Dunn, MSU’s vice president for university advancement, said it takes an endowment gift of approximately $250,000 to earn enough in interest to pay for one player’s scholarship for one year.

The dollar amount of Division I athletic scholarships — as well as the number — are limited by the NCAA, Dunn said. Through private donations such as Vicki Spoonhour’s, the university is trying to free up general fund money.

Spoonhour left MSU for Saint Louis University, where he coached 1992-99. He coached at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas 2001-04. His lifetime record was 397-202.

Spoonhour became a television commentator for men’s basketball for the Missouri Valley Conference and the University of Oklahoma.

He underwent a lung transplant in August 2010 at Duke University Medical Center after being diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an illness that scars the lungs. “Idiopathic” means the cause was unknown. He died from complications of the disease.